You Can’t Eat The Best Thing In My Kitchen

Folks who have known me a long time find it funny that I treasure anything in my kitchen.

See, much to the disbelief of my husband and kids, the ones I now cook for on a nightly basis, the ones who enjoy my usually pretty darn edible, if not delicious meals, for most of my life, I couldn’t cook.

There really is no way to over-estimate just how bad I was in the kitchen.

My parents and siblings would allow me only to wash dishes on Thanksgiving.

There was that time I put an old boyfriend in the hospital with my cooking.

Yeah, I’m talking that kind of bad.

Funny thing is, somewhere in that pathetically, awful non-cook’s body, there apparently was a cook wanting to get out.

Albeit, very, very slowly.

Even as a single gal dependent on frozen dinners and canned soup for dinner, I would sometimes get a tiny bit of courage to try.

Like those times I would get hankering for a baked potato.

Each time the craving arose, I’d go to market, buy a potato, come home and call Cyndi, my best friend since kindergarten.

Cyndi, my best friend since the first day of kindergarten. True story! We’ve shared every major milestone of our lives. I’ve known her longer than my own little sister, who wasn’t born until first grade!

“How do you bake a potato again?” I’d ask.

She’d patiently tell me once again how to preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Meanwhile, scrub the potato, pierce it with a fork and stick it in the oven for an hour.

Sounds simple enough, but no matter how many times I tried, the how of potato never stuck in my brain.

And no matter how many times I would call Cyndi, she’d go over the instructions.

Share this:

Related

Comments

2 comments

And mine is Kay-my college friend. We met (along with Toni) in 1974 and have been friends ever since. Or, as I like to say, sisters of the heart-the three of us. I look around my house and see things she’s sent me just when I needed a pick-me-up. Our friendship has lasted through broken hearts, marriages, births, miscarriages, deaths, health crises (my husband was very ill a few years ago and she had a stroke last year, Toni became a young widow) and moves (me:Louisiana to Florida to Georgia). Kay knows all my secrets and I know without a doubt that I can write, call, email, or text and she’s there for me with a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, with no judgement. As I put the Christmas pillow she gave me out on the stairs I think: Yeah, these things make her my baked potato friend for sure.